In October 1992, a Circassian man by the name of Tevfik Esenç passed away at the age of 88. Esenç had been, as his gravestone attested, “the last person able to speak the language they called Ubykh.” An extreme example of the remarkable languages of the Caucasus mountains, Ubykh was articulated with all of 80 different consonants, compared to English’s 24. Regarding Ubykh, linguist John ...